Confessions of a Helmet-Free Childhood: True-ish Tales of an Analog Upbringing

By Cinnia Curran Finfer

Whether she's taking a face plant in a second-grade war, lying her way into pet ownership, setting the fondue kit on fire or taking the Fifth after an epic food fight, Confessions of a Helmet-Free Childhood  is a fun, easy read of trial and error -- heavy on the error.

Like any kid, she made bad calls, big mistak

• Language: English
• Publisher: The Finfer Group Inc
• Release date: Jan 10, 2020
• ISBN: 9781734307429

Book preview

Prologue

Childhood is not a tidy process.

A bundle of impulses and appetites, most of us didn’t know why we did things. We just did them—with mixed results. Bouncing through life as best we could, being a kid could be humiliating one day, exhilarating another . . . with a whole lot of ordinary days thrown in between.

Confessions of a Helmet-Free Childhood is a recollection of my messy ascension to adulthood as well as a testament to experiences I had as a result of being a kid in the 1960s and 1970s. I got to do certain things that did not exist for my parents and no longer exist for my kids—lucky me.

Baseball pitcher Vernon Law once said, Experience is a tough teacher—you get the test first and the lesson later. For me, this was standard operating procedure.

Because by getting it wrong, we find our way to the right.

Took a Face Plant in the Second-Grade War

It’s war! The boys and girls of second grade at Traub Elementary have decided to spend recess outwitting members of the opposite sex and taking prisoners, whenever and however possible, to be released during the next day’s recess, when we will pick up where the action left off.

As a relatively new kid, I do not buy into the conflict. I like the girls in my class well enough and have no beef with the boys. Somehow, I negotiate to be a neutral party—a horse, actually. I work it so that as a horse, I can go to either side with messages from the opposing forces with no threat of capture. This makes perfect sense in second grade.

I find this an excellent arrangement. I trot over to the boys and get their demands. I prance back to the girls, deliver the news, get their reply, and return with the boys’ rebuttal. Then it’s back again with a revised list of issues—all with full diplomatic immunity.

During one of these crossovers, I am stopped in my tracks by Jimmy, the class heartthrob. He has not heard of my special status and thinks I’m making it up on the fly to evade capture. Frozen in a stand of trees by the side of the schoolyard, I plead my case. Jimmy isn’t buying it. He doesn’t know me well and does not want to be tricked by a girl.

Meanwhile, in my head, I am exhilarated. Like the other girls in my class, I have a stone-cold crush on Jimmy. Maybe it’s his bunny-brown eyes, tan skin, and those bangs! Maybe it’s his sense of style. After all, he’s the only boy who wore a cardigan sweater on class picture day—teal blue at that. But here I am, face to face with Mr. Second Grade, together . . . alone . . . in the woods. While arguing my case for passage, I’m secretly hoping this takes a long time and that someone will see us together.

Meanwhile, Jimmy still isn’t buying it, and in loyalty to his gender, gives chase—either to capture me or drive me back deep into Girl Territory.

I think this is great and take off. Little but swift, I give him a literal run for his money. Glancing back to enjoy the